Kingdom Woman: Embracing Your Purpose, Power, and Possibilities (16 page)

Prayer should be a regular part of our lives because it is so critical to us. You might be asking, “Why pray?” Hebrews 11:6 puts it this way: “Without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.” Prayer is a way of expressing faith, and without faith, we cannot please God. Even if you are weak in faith, pray anyway, because calling upon God’s name is an act of faith, which will, in turn, build up your faith. Go to God, even though you can’t see Him physically and He doesn’t talk back to you audibly. Believe He is there because the Bible promises that He is. That will build up your faith.

Pray Sincerely

When we pray, Jesus says we must also pray sincerely:

This goes along with Matthew 6:1:

If you pray for the applause of people, you lose the applause of heaven. If you pray to be heard by people and not to communicate with God, you are not communicating
with
God.

Jesus made it clear in those verses that the Pharisees were not models of prayer; they were hypocrites.
Hypocrite
is a very visual word, meaning literally “to wear a mask.” Just like actors who play their parts, the Pharisees prayed so that others would see their “holiness.”

In Jesus’ day, the Jews prayed three times a day—at 3:00
PM
, 6:00
PM
, and 9:00
PM
. When prayer time came, the hypocrites would go to the most crowded spots in the neighborhood—the marketplaces, the street corners, anywhere that others could observe their religious piety. Jesus told His followers to do the opposite. He said not to pray as if we are onstage, using fancy words. Eloquence in prayer may impress men, but it has no power in heaven.

Pray Secretly

The third precaution that Jesus gives us concerning prayer is that we must pray secretly.

Your true faith shines through when you are alone. If you spend more time trying to impress other people than you spend communicating with God in your private prayers, then your spiritual priorities are out of line.

Jesus tells us to pray in secret, but He doesn’t mean we should never pray in public. Plenty of public prayers are in the Bible. For example, in 1 Timothy 2:8 Paul told the people of the church to “lift up holy hands” in collective prayer. Jesus prayed publicly as well. He was not condemning public prayer, but He was saying that if a man prays publicly, he should also have a private prayer life. It would be wrong to present a façade at church on Sundays and Wednesdays to make people believe you want to be in the Lord’s presence when you haven’t communicated with God or drawn near to Him all week long. What you do in secret is who you really are.

When Jesus commands us to pray in secret, He means that we should shut out anything and everything that could distract us from spending time with the Lord. He tells us to physically shut the door, because we are so easily distracted. God is spirit, and He doesn’t often use an audible voice to communicate with His followers, so it is hard for us to truly speak and listen in faith. We must remove those distractions so God can connect with us through the Holy Spirit.

You may think it’s boring to be all by yourself in a room with no noise—just you and God. But once the Spirit connects you to the solitude of His presence, you will understand what David wrote about in the Psalms: lying on his bed in God’s presence and having God fill and surround him. Those are powerful times alone with the Creator.

Pray Thoughtfully

Also, when we pray, Jesus says we are to pray thoughtfully. Matthew 6:7 says, “And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words.” This precaution is convicting. When I read these words, I remember when I was a boy, my mother often asked me to pray before meals, but I hated when she asked me on the days we ate fried chicken. I would pray with my eyes open, looking for that one perfect piece of chicken that would satisfy my hunger. I would put my hands at the very edge of my plate before I ended my prayer so that I could be that much closer to snatching the best piece of chicken. I wasn’t thinking about God; I was thinking about the chicken. I just had to get through the prayer and get through with God to get to that chicken. Isn’t that our attitude too much of the time? We want to hurry up and pray so we can get to the meal or the meeting or whatever is next on our schedules.

So how do we break the pattern of meaningless repetition? We must increase our knowledge of the subject (God) and bring that information to influence our prayer lives. The more we know about somebody, the more we have to talk about with that person. When you learn something of God through the Scriptures or at church, allow it to influence your prayer.

Pray Specifically

Last, let’s examine Matthew 7:7. Jesus said, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” Asking demands humility because it means you must go to Him and request something. Then Jesus continued, saying,

Fish and bread, as Jesus mentioned in these verses, were the ordinary daily diet of the Jewish person. God is concerned about the “fish” and “bread” of our daily lives—the common occurrences in our days, the feelings of our hearts, and the details of our thoughts. He doesn’t just want to hear from us when we have huge problems. He wants to hear all of our concerns and praises, big and small. If you only relate to God in the large issues of life, you make Him a 911 emergency problem solver, and you will only occasionally relate to Him. But if you communicate with Him in the “fish” and “bread” moments of your life, you will follow the instruction of 1 Thessalonians 5:17 to “pray continually.”

In fact, when the verse talks about someone asking for a fish or a loaf, those are both items that are legitimate daily needs. The fish and the loaf of bread indicate things that we should be expecting God to provide. God is concerned with your needs. Bring Him your ordinary requests but also trust that He can do more than you could ever expect. He is a God of both the ordinary and the extraordinary.

Praise Him when you have food on the table. Praise Him when He opens the Red Sea. Praise Him when you have clothes on your back. Praise Him when He brings water out of the stone and manna from on high. Praise Him when you have gas in your tank. Praise Him when the doctor says your illness is cured. Praise Him for that, but also praise Him because nothing went wrong today. Praise Him because He provides for your basic needs. Praise Him for the “fish” and the “bread.” Praise Him for the ordinary. And guess what! He’ll be there for the extraordinary.

Prayer is a multifaceted communication channel with God. When you combine it with the principles from the parable of the widow and the unjust judge—going to God based on His Word and your legal rights through the new covenant—it can also be a powerful tool used to help you live out the fullness of your destiny as a kingdom woman.

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Whenever I’m asked what my favorite quote of all time is, I always reply with the profound words of Corrie ten Boom, author of
The Hiding Place
and World War II concentration camp survivor: “There is no pit so deep that [God] is not deeper still.”
[33]
Corrie not only understood about intense human suffering but also lived a life in which God was prioritized above all else. She was able to access His peace in the midst of unimaginable pain.

Pain is often a part of the pavement on the road of faith and spiritual maturity. Not all who set off down this road travel at the same speed or reach the same destination. I believe the answer is linked to how well each woman not only embraces but also cooperates with God’s formula for fruitfulness even in times of pain. His formula is found in John 15 and involves a process of pruning, abiding, and then ultimately bearing fruit.

The Process of Bearing Fruit

Jesus and His disciples sat in an upper room in Bethany sharing their last meal together before the crucifixion. On their way to town, their path led them through the valley of Kidron. Kidron was a grape grower’s fantasyland, with fertile vineyards flourishing on all sides.

Perhaps as Jesus noticed the luscious grapes growing on these prolific vines,
it occurred to Him to use this imagery for one of His most poignant teachings. In John 15:1–11, He said to His disciples,

I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.

Since the disciples were Jewish, they would likely have thought back to Psalm 80:8, where Israel was compared to a vine transplanted by God from Egypt to the Promised Land. There was only one problem with this relocated vine: It produced sour fruit. Instead of growing as God intended, the Jews got carried away with their own righteousness. Then along came Jesus. “Friends,” He said, “I am the real thing. You may think you’ve seen vines before, but you haven’t seen anything like Me. And then there’s My Father; He’s the vinedresser. He takes care of the vine.” In this vineyard, we’ve been introduced to the vine and the vinedresser. In verse 2, Jesus turned His attention toward the branches on the vine. That’s where you come in.

However, before we explore what being a branch is all about, let’s give some attention to what Jesus meant when He said “every branch in me.” To illustrate
my point, all I need to do is refer to the institution of marriage. When you marry, you enter into an organic relationship; you and your spouse become one flesh. But, as many of us know, the fact that you have said “I do” does not automatically result in an intimate, rewarding marriage relationship. Sparks of love don’t fly around your living room just because there happens to be a gold band around your finger. It is entirely possible (and all too common) to be married and miserable.

The goal of marriage, then, is much more than bringing two people together. Marriage is a covenantal union designed to strengthen the capability of each partner to carry out the plan of God in his or her life. When Jesus talked about being a branch “in me,” He was not alluding to those who are merely acquainted with Him. He was referring to people who abide in an intentional oneness with Him, focused on the same purpose of glorifying God and His kingdom.

Pruning

Moving from producing no fruit to producing some fruit is an important step. Still, it is just the beginning. Once you start to reflect the character of Christ, who took up residence inside you when you were saved, then God shifts into high gear. He begins pruning your branches in the hopes of producing more fruit. Pruning, for our purposes, is a matter of trimming away unwanted distractions that tend to rob the branches of the nourishment they receive from the vine.

In the parlance of the grape grower, these distractions are called
sucker shoots
, little branches that grow where the vine and branch intersect. As they grow larger, they begin to do exactly what their name suggests: They suck away the life-giving sap on its way from the vine to the branch. Before long, the branch becomes malnourished and eventually dies, all because the sucker shoot was allowed to consume what was originally intended for the branch. That’s why any vinedresser worth her pruning shears will clip away those sucker shoots
as soon as she discovers them. The sooner they are removed, the less damage they inflict.

All kingdom women must deal with sucker shoots of one kind or another. Some of you have friends who fit this description. Even though you start out intending to influence them, they wind up exerting more influence on you. Instead of drawing you closer to God, they lure you away, robbing you of the life-giving nourishment that results from intimate fellowship with the Father. Lifeless gadgets like televisions, iPods, and smart phones can be transformed into sucker shoots if you allow them to siphon off the time and attention you would otherwise devote to God.

When we allow our priorities to fall into disarray, we can count on some pruning. God will not stand by and watch something else suck the life out of a potentially fruitful branch. One of the interesting things about distractions is that they can be good things in and of themselves. Distractions aren’t always negative things that take us away from what is good. Frequently, they are good things that take us away from what is better. The biblical story of Martha and Mary emphasizes this point clearly.

While Jesus was traveling from city to city sharing the good news, He entered a certain village where two ladies, Martha and Mary, lived. Now, even though Jesus was with His disciples—and everyone knows that if you invite thirteen preachers into your home, it means you are going to have to prepare a rather large meal—Martha took it upon herself to welcome Him and His team for dinner.

However, in the midst of preparing this enormous meal, an issue came up between the two sisters. Apparently, Mary had started out helping in the kitchen but had found her way to Jesus’ feet, captivated by what He was saying. We know all of this occurred based on what Martha said to Jesus: “But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to [Jesus] and asked, ‘Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!’ ” (Luke 10:40).

Jesus’ reply to Martha gives us one of the most significant insights into our relationship with God. He said, “Martha, Martha . . . you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her” (verses 41–42).

In His statement, Jesus affirmed that Mary had chosen the better thing. The things that had distracted Martha were not bad things. In fact, they were good things that she was doing
for
Jesus. However, the very things Martha was doing
for
Jesus distracted her
from
Jesus.

Martha hadn’t been disobeying God in her meal preparations, but she had become so involved in them that she excluded herself from time with Christ. Essentially, her calendar had become filled with cooking rather than being with her Savior.

Often when women come to me for counseling because they are struggling in their lives, it is not because of ongoing sin. Nor is it because they are bad people. Most of the time, the issues have developed because of the overabundance of good things that they are trying to accomplish simultaneously, thus leading to their priorities being out of kilter.

Another issue that often arises is the same as what happened with Martha. It is easy to blame God when things get chaotic, even if that chaos is a direct result of too much activity and misaligned priorities. Martha said, “Lord, don’t you care . . . ?” Essentially, Martha was accusing God of not caring about her working so hard in the kitchen. It is important not to blame God when your own distractions are piling up and creating challenges. Martha’s problem wasn’t the Lord. In fact, Martha’s problem wasn’t even Mary.

Martha’s problem was Martha.

If I could paraphrase Jesus’ response, it might have gone like this: “Change your menu, Martha. If cooking a banquet is going to keep you away from Me, then a casserole will do.” Not only did Martha’s busy life keep her from Jesus, but it also interrupted her intimacy with her sister, Mary. Who knows how many other things or relationships Martha’s preoccupied focus kept her from as well.

In your personal life as a kingdom woman, it is essential to note that in the good things of life, you should try not to lose the important things. Show me your calendar, and I will show you your priorities. How you schedule your time, as well as your resources, reveals what is truly important.

If you are not spending time cultivating your relationship with the Savior, it is not because you don’t have the time. It is because you don’t prioritize the relationship. Whatever is first in your life, you will find the time to do.

When our lives are deeply entangled in things that draw us away from God, He will often use that opportunity or situation to prune us. Let me point out something you have probably already noticed. Pruning hurts. There’s no getting around the fact that when God starts trimming away pieces of your life, the process will be less than comfortable. The more shoots that need to be sheared, the more painful the process. Is God sensitive to your pain? Of course. But God will weigh the short-term discomfort against the long-term benefit.

I remember a certain trip to the doctor when my son Anthony was still quite young. Anthony had caught a bug and needed a shot to put him back on the road to recovery. The doctor came into the room brandishing a needle that must have looked as large as a pen to my son. “Turn around and bend over,” the doctor instructed. Anthony looked at me with a petrified and pitiful look and said, “Daddy, don’t let him do it. He’s gonna hurt me! Daaaddy!!”

At that moment, I had to remember the long-term benefit at stake that outweighed Anthony’s short-term fear and pain. Despite what my emotions were telling me, being a good father meant encouraging Anthony while he got the shot. I had to help hold down my son while the shot was delivered. Enduring the pruning process is much like facing the needle. And life is full of needles.

We have two choices before us. We can run out of the room to avoid the needles, or we can run to our heavenly Daddy. Now, our Father may keep us in the room, but that’s only because He knows we need the needle.

Single Women

The story of Martha and Mary is an excellent segue into an important aspect of being a kingdom woman that applies to a great number of women today. That is the area of being a kingdom single. Nothing in the passage about Martha and Mary leads us to believe that either of these ladies was married. Typically, in biblical culture, a woman was often introduced with regard to her family status—either as
the wife of
or
the mother of
.

Yet with these two women, we never once see them connected to a husband
or children, which makes the reality of Mary resting at Christ’s feet more relevant than we might imagine. If Mary had needed to tend to her family and children, she might not have experienced the luxury of so much uninterrupted time in Christ’s presence. Being a kingdom single has its benefits spiritually. Even Paul made note of that when he spoke of singles (we will look at that soon).

There is often a major emphasis in the church on marriage, as there should be. Marriage is a divine institution created by God to carry out His dominion mandate on earth. So many of the church programs and even the Bible studies are aimed at married couples. However, I don’t believe that enough emphasis is placed on the value and significance of singlehood.

Being a Christian single is a unique and high calling. Scripture has not ignored the subject, and in this chapter on a kingdom woman and her family, I want to make sure we do not ignore the subject either. Over the years I have encountered many singles who fall into one of two categories. Either they are frustrated as they wait for what they believe is their true purpose—a married relationship—or they jump too early into unhealthy relationships so they live dissatisfied with what they have.